news
Welcome to
the Winter edition of Comms News. A lot has happened over the course of
2008 and 2009 is set to become rather challenging if we are to believe
what the media is telling us. What has become very clear with a number
of businesses that we are in contact with, is the need for assessment
and evaluation. Whereas before everyone was too busy to worry too much
about processes and infrastructure, it's now about taking a close look
at your company and seeing where things might be tightened or
streamlined and as a consequence improved.
One of the main areas in business where this can be achieved is your
communications. There are a number of ways to save money and streamline
but it does take a specialist, impartial eye, to notice how this can be
achieved. That's where we can help. Get in contact asap and let us look
at your current communications infrastructure to see if there are any
improvements to be made. You could be quite surprised!
Look forward to speaking with you soon.
Mark Wilson
Managing Director
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Siemens
HiPath 580 Phone System
The Siemens HiPath 580
communications platform boasts a convincing and extensive range of convenient
features for the small business on a tight budget.
The 580 comes with 8
digital and 4 analogue extensions. This can be increased to 16 digital
extensions by the use of slave adapters. It comes with the capacity for 2 x
ISDN2 digital lines (4 B Channels) and has entry level voicemail. Overall, this
is a great solution for a small business. As long as there is no need for
further expansion, the HiPath 580 comes packed with all the features required
by a small business.
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New
Call Recording Legislation
From March 2009, many UK financial
institutions will have to record and store telephone conversations and
electronic communications relating to client orders under new regulations to be
introduced by the Financial Services Authority.
The introduction of the
taping programme is part of the FSA's efforts to combat market abuse,
particularly insider dealing and market manipulation.
Any non-financial
business that relies on taking orders or instructions over the phone would also
benefit from conversation recording to avoid disagreements as to what was said.
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Reducing
costs through VoIP
We quite often get asked about the
benefits of VoIP (voice over internet protocol) as many people have heard of
the acronym but do not necessarily understand what it is all about. VoIP is
essentially the practice of making and receiving phone calls over a data
network. For business this can be good for remote workers who want to be seen
as an extension off the main system back at the office without having to be
there or for companies with multi-sites which can all be linked up to create
free calls between sites. We offer a number of solutions tailored towards VoIP
and have a website specifically aimed at this.
Please visit www.voipphone-systems.co.uk
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SIP
trunks
SIP Trunking provides the ability
to make and receive telephone calls over the internet. Within the next 10 years,
90% of telephone calls worldwide will be made over the internet. SIP is a worldwide
internet protocol for establishing and maintaining multi-party, mixed media
sessions over converged networks. SIP enables the creation and deployment of
feature-rich services that go far beyond simple VoIP calls. It provides an open
programming protocol for voice, text and video applications.
Whilst SIP trunks are what you use to
connect a phone system to the internet for making and receiving calls, SIP
phones can be used by remote workers with the benefit that calls between the
remote worker and the office are free.
We
have been trialing SIP trunks and can now offer this to all our clients. One of
the immediate benefits of utilising SIP is the flexibility of being able to
take your telephone number with you if you move office, even if you are on a
different exchange. Please contact us for further information.
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Analysing your call traffic with TIM
TIM Professional - the pioneering
call logger that set the standards on which all others are based. It is a windows-based
application that uses the data output from your telephone system, checks it,
costs it and stores it automatically. From this data, complete summary or detailed
management information can be sought across your whole organisation.
Features include:
Control Costs TIM gives department
managers the information they need to control their own budgets for telephone
costs. Just knowing such a system is in place can reduce general telephone
abuse, allowing significant savings.
Improve Service TIM identifies when and
where your calls are being missed. Missed calls mean lost business, and customer
dissatisfaction. TIM also monitors your line usage. Do you have enough lines?
Do you have too many? TIM scrutinises your telephone traffic and can readily
suggest line optimisation.
Fast and Accurate TIM retrieves
information in seconds. It works around a lightning-fast and incredibly
flexible costing algorithm allowing stats to be produced within seconds of a
call being made.
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QoS on your Broadband
When the internet was
first created, there was no perceived need for a QoS (Quality of Service)
application. So in fact the entire internet ran on a "best effort"
system. There were four "type of service" bits and three
"precedence" bits provided in each message, but they were largely
unused. There are many things that can happen to packets as they travel from
origin to destination and they result in the following problems:
Dropped packets: the routers might fail to deliver
(drop) some packets if they arrive when their buffers are already full. Some,
none, or all of the packets might be dropped, depending on the state of the
network, and it is impossible to determine what happened in advance. Whilst
data the packets can be resent, for voice packets this would not make sense.
Delay: it might take a long time for a packet to reach its
destination because it gets held up in long queues or takes a less direct route
to avoid congestion. Alternatively, it might follow a fast, direct route. Thus
delay is very unpredictable.
Jitter: packets from source will
reach the destination with different delays. This variation in delay is known
as jitter and can seriously affect the quality of voice.
Out-of-order delivery: when a collection of
related packets are routed through the internet, different packets may take
different routes, each resulting in a different delay. The result is that the
packets arrive in a different order to the one with which they were sent. This
problem necessitates special additional protocols responsible for rearranging
out-of-order packets once they reach their destination.
Error: sometimes packets are
misdirected, or combined together, or corrupted, while en route. Again for voice
it is too late to correct by resending so resulting in poor quality.
Solutions:
- A poor quality broadband line (i.e. too much loss, delay and jitter)
will be unsuitable for voice whatever QoS you try to apply.
- If line quality is good then a QoS router will probably support one or
two voice calls dependent on how heavy the data requirements.
- To support several voice calls you either need an uncontended SDSL
service or a separate, voice only, broadband line.
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Customer News
Peavey Electronics, suppliers of professional musical
instruments, amplification and audio products have upgraded their Siemens HiPath 3550 to IP working ready
for linking to their main UK
premises in Corby. www.peavey-eu.com
Flowstore Systems, specialists in
storage, material handling and order picking solutions chose the all IP Siemens HiPath OpenOffice system for their new premises. Among other
benefits, they can now seamlessly transfer sales enquiries to their remote sales
staff. www.flowstore.co.uk
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October 2008 -
Datasharp Channel Distribution is launched at a new state-of-the-art
warehouse facility in Redruth, Cornwall with Siemens as its tentpole
manufacturing partner.
December 2007 - Datasharp becomes one of Siemens test sites for the new HiPath OpenOffice system
March 2007 - Datasharp wins Nortels top SMB Achiever award for the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa).
April 2006 -
Datasharp launch 'Hosted IP Services'. All you need is an IP phone, or
softphone on your laptop, and a Broadband connection to operate
anywhere in the world.
March 2006 - Datasharp Group win Siemens 'Customer Care' award for the fouth time
September 2005
- Datasharp gain Gold Solutions Partner accreditation with Nortel
Networks for SME IP Telephony with the BCM range. That makes Datasharp
one of only two such companies in Europe; the other being BT.
March 2005 - Datasharp Group win Siemens 'Customer Care' award for the third time
September 2004
- Datasharp become the first organisation to sign an agreement with BT
Indirect Channels for the promotion of BT products and services,
including line provision and end to end routing of calls over the BT
network.
June 2004 - Datsharp win the Siemens 'Dealer of the Year' award
May 2004 - Datasharp customer Trials Latest Siemens IP Cards & Phones
KPOS Computer Systems acted as trial site for the new HG1500 version 3
IP cards and new OptiPoint 410 IP phones. Also taking the IP phones
were BMW UK and Deutsche Bank.
February 2004 - What to Buy for Business awards Siemens 'Best Buy 2004'
Siemens have won 'Best Buy for Business 2004' with their HiPath 540, HiPath 3500, 3550, 3700 and 3750 systems
November 2003 - Siemens launch 'OpenScape'
Developed in conjunction with Microsoft, it is real time communication
software designed to boost personal and workgroup productivity. It can
help eliminate telephone tag, manage availability, eliminate e-mail
trails and provide workgroup collaboration by controlling the various
means of communication under a portal with a single virtual contact
number.
August 2003 - 192 Directory Enquiry Service ends.
BT's monopoly on directory enquiries has ended. Several companies have
been licenced to provide competing services under 118 numbers. For a
full list of providers go to www.newdirectoryenquiries.com Further
information is also provided in our Autumn newsletter.
July 2003 -
Samsung launch their IP enabled business phone systems called
OfficeServ. This is designed not only for companies with multi-sites
but also for those wanting to provide IP down to the desk.
December 2002 -
Datasharp have supplied three videoconferencing systems to Apollo Fire
Detectors in Havant, Hampshire to enable them to have 'visual' links
with their offices in Germany and USA.
November 2002 -
Datasharp awarded Siemens 'Customer Care' award for the second year
running. This prestigious award recognises the high level of care and
support we provide our customers. |
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